


Something fluffy this way comes

by SapphicScholar



Series: Supercat & General Danvers Week 2020 [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Day 6: Family, Dog fic, F/F, Fluff, Supercat Week, family fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: “When Cat hears Kara’s insistent, “We’ll find a home for him,” and, “Tomorrow, Carter, really,” she decides to let it be for the night. Besides, Alex is a soft touch with Kara, and she suspects that whatever mutt is currently curled up with her son—and she makes a mental note to buy new sheets and have the current ones incinerated—will soon enough be warming Alex’s bed.”(Reader, Alex is not the only soft touch.)
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant
Series: Supercat & General Danvers Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966618
Comments: 25
Kudos: 185
Collections: General Danvers & Supercat Week 5





	Something fluffy this way comes

The staff at CatCo are all fairly certain that Cat doesn’t need sleep to function. In truth, Cat’s simply a light sleeper in a long-standing relationship with insomnia. And, when she’s already up at 2 in the morning, she doesn’t really see why she should put off sending an email that needs to be sent or responding to inadequate page proofs that require editing. If her body is going to insist on failing at something that comes so naturally to most, she may as well take advantage of it.

With Kara now warming her bed each night, Cat sleeps both better and worse than she ever has.

On nights when Kara is there, Cat curls into her side, letting the warmth seep into her and lull her to sleep. And when she finds herself awake and frustrated, well, there are some advantages to having a girlfriend who doesn’t actually _need_ to sleep as much as humans do.

But then there are the nights Kara is pulled from bed by a cry for help or, worse still, the nights when she’s yet to return from the latest attack on National City. Those nights, Cat knows she wouldn’t be able to sleep even if she tried. And no matter how fervently she swears up and down to Carter that Kara will be fine—has always been fine, though that’s not exactly true—she sits awake in bed, awash in the blue light of her phone as she refreshes Twitter and her news feeds for any updates again and again and again.

All of which is to say, she is wide awake to hear the frantic clicking and skittering of dog paws on her hardwood floors at 4am, followed by Kara’s “Shh, sweetie, nice and quiet.”

Hell, it’s loud enough to wake Carter, who has to be dragged out of bed for school these days, and Cat listens to him come shuffling out of his bedroom.

The low murmur of conversation doesn’t muffle the _oof_ Carter lets out or the laugh that bursts forth from his mouth a moment later.

She rolls her eyes as she hears them tiptoeing down the hallway—footsteps heavy as a parade of elephants—and ushering a dog that she just _knows_ is dirty and germy and probably not even close to house-trained into Carter’s room.

She knows it could be a fight. Would most certainly have been a fight were it a year or so ago. But she hears Kara’s insistent, “We’ll find a home for him,” and, “Tomorrow, Carter, really,” and decides to let it be for the night. Besides, Alex is a soft touch with Kara, and she suspects that whatever mutt is currently curled up with her son—and she makes a mental note to buy new sheets and have the current ones incinerated—will soon enough be warming Alex’s bed.

So when Kara comes to bed after a quick shower, Cat curls up and closes her eyes and lets herself be drawn into Kara’s warmth. Tomorrow, the dog will be gone, and she can have a little chat with Kara about secrets and dirt in the apartment.

Only, when Cat opens the door to the apartment at the end of the next day, she’s confronted with the sight of a very large dog bounding after an electric blue tennis ball.

A moment later, Carter comes sprinting into the room, sliding on the hardwood in his socks. “Mom! You’re home early,” he pants.

“I am.” She arches an eyebrow and waits, watching as he shuffles forward and coaxes the dog back into the living room with a large squeaky toy she most certainly did not have lying around the house.

“So, um, you’re probably wondering about Frankie.”

“Frankie?”

Carter blinks once, then twice. “Well, he needed a name.”

“And you got to Frankie, how exactly?”

“Oh! Well, Kara found him eating an old hot dog, and so she was calling him Frank, kind of as a joke, but if you look at training books, they suggest two-syllable names are the easiest for dogs to hear and recognize, so…Frankie.”

“And why would you be looking at dog training guides?”

Frankie chooses that moment to wriggle out of Carter’s grasp and barrel towards the sofa, jumping up and throwing himself across it. Cat follows him into the room, surveying the damage that’s been done. She spots a few dirty paw prints on the upholstery, plus at least one missing pillow (and a few down feathers peeking out from under the sofa).

“Well,” Carter begins, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Sorry I’m late!” Kara calls out as she opens the door. “Didn’t know what a line there’d be at the pet store, but your mom shouldn’t be home for another—” Kara cuts herself off at the sight of Cat standing by the dog, arms folded across her chest. “Oh.”

“Mm,” Cat hums. “Seems to be the word of the day here.”

“I… Didn’t you have that late meeting with the production team today?”

“Sandra’s nanny had an emergency.”

“I see.” Kara swallows heavily and fidgets with the large bags in her hand. “Well, um, you see, I found Frankie here this morning—”

“Last night,” Cat cuts in. “You’re not nearly so sneaky as you think you are.”

“Right.”

“And how is it that you went from assuring my son he’d be gone within the day to bringing home a”—she squints at the largest of the items tucked under Kara’s arm—“30-pound bag of dog food?”

Lowering the bags to the ground and beginning to unpack them, Kara doesn’t make eye contact as she mumbles, “Erm, well, you see, I did _try_.”

“And what?” Cat snaps. “You tripped and fell back into the apartment?”

“Mom,” Carter cuts in, his voice stern—far more stern tone than she’s used to hearing from him. “You have to use your quiet voice. Frankie’s kind of nervous.”

Cat glances over her shoulder and sees Frankie with his ears back, a slight quiver wracking his frame. “It’s okay,” she coos, gentling her voice. It’s the work of a moment to grab one of the bags of training treats Kara has set out on the coffee table and drop a few on the couch cushion close enough for Frankie to eat if he chooses to. She gestures for Kara to continue, watching out of the corner of her eye as Frankie slowly moves to take one, then gobbles the rest up in a single bite.

“So I took him to the vet this morning to, you know, see if he had a microchip or anything like that, and to make sure he didn’t have any medical issues that we should worry about. He didn’t. And he doesn’t seem to have any family.”

“Obviously.”

“Right. Well, they told me to take him to the pound. Only, he got really scared. Like…so scared, Cat. Whole body trembling. And even though he was a little nervous with me at first last night, I could tell this was different. And he leaned so hard up against my legs, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make him go in when he was all scared.”

Cat sighs. Because it’s everything she loves about Kara coming back to bite her in the ass. She inches back towards Frankie and drops another few treats. This time he doesn’t wait before practically vacuuming them off the cushion. And, she supposes, it’s as good an excuse as any to get a new couch.

“But he’s really trainable! And he’s shy, but he’s totally warmed up to Carter and me. And he’s pretty much house-trained.”

 _Pretty much_. Cat closes her eyes and rubs her temples and counts to 10. Then to 20 when she can still feel the tension headache building.

“We can totally still look for a permanent home for him, but, well, I was talking to someone at the shelter on the phone, and they were saying that nervous dogs often do better in foster home environments, and I know we didn’t exactly go through the formal channels, but maybe we could, you know,” Kara shrugs, blinking up at Cat with those big blue eyes. “Maybe we could be like Eliza and the Danvers were for me—a home for someone who doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You know you only get to play that card once, right?”

Kara’s lips quirk up for a moment before she schools her expression and nods. “Of course.” (They both know it won’t be the only time. And it’s already not the first time—memories of the baby bird that lived on the balcony for weeks and woke them with insistent chirping at the crack of dawn still haunt her.)

“Anyway, I don’t think Frankie would like a crate very much, but I got him a bed. And some bowls. And also some snacks and toys and kibble.”

“Anything else?” Cat teases.

“Oh, well, I got a nicer collar and leash, plus a harness ’cause I bet a big boy like this is gonna pull—at least at first.”

It’s then that Cat notices the oh-so-recognizable bright blue and red colors of the collar currently around Frankie’s neck. “Really, Kara? Matching with the dog already?”

“It was all that they had in his size last night.” She looks sheepish as she rubs at the back of her neck. “Also the cashier was pretty insistent that I would like it, and I didn’t wanna make him feel bad.”

Cat rolls her eyes and rifles through the bags until she finds the new one. It’s a deep shade of purple that she thinks will look quite handsome with his black fur. “Better.”

Kara beams and rips off the tags before swapping the two out.

Cat knows Carter catches her smiling at the way Frankie totally changes when Kara gets closer, his tail thwacking against the couch as he lifts an arm and lets Kara rub his chest, but she can’t bring herself to care—not when she can hear Kara murmuring to Frankie about having proper kibble now and “no more scrambled egg breakfasts…well, maybe sometimes, but only as a treat.”

“I should probably take him out for a walk,” Kara says once she’s done changing the collars. “Do you, um, maybe want to come with?”

And Cat’s still in heels and a form-fitting dress that would decidedly not look better with dirty pawprints or dog fur all over it, but she finds herself sighing and giving in at the sight of the hopeful look Kara is shooting her way.

It’s almost worth it to see Kara struggling with Frankie’s new harness.

It’s definitely worth it when she finds out that Frankie is terrified of the elevator and watches Kara scoop up what has to be a 60- or 70-pound dog and cradle him to her chest the whole ride down from the penthouse.

“He smells better today,” Cat acknowledges after about 10 floors have passed.

Kara nods. “Yeah, they got him nice and clean at the vet. And he got all his shots, too. Looks like he might’ve had a family once, since he’s in pretty good shape, but…” Kara trails off, and Cat watches as her expression darkens before she forces her breath to even out. “Anyway, he’s safe with us now. I mean, you know, until we find him a forever home.”

Cat knows then that there will never be another forever home, though she simply hums in acknowledgment of everything Kara’s saying (and all that’s going unsaid).

“You and Carter are in charge of potty training him, and I want it done fast.”

Kara nods quickly.

“And obedience classes.”

“Of course. Carter’s actually really excited about them. I think it’ll be good for him.”

“And he sleeps in his own bed.”

“That’s why I bought it.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

Kara beams and kisses Frankie’s head. “Did you hear that?” she stage-whispers. “She likes you!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Okay.”

“This dog is _your_ responsibility.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it.”

“Roger that.”

Cat huffs and crosses her arms.

Neither one of them mentions it when Cat is the one to yell at strangers who get too close to Frankie and make him nervous. Nor do they talk about the way Frankie begins to fall into heel with Cat, snuffling at the back of her hand for the snacks that seem to appear like magic so readily.

\---

That night, once Frankie is settled in his new fluffy dog bed with Carter sprawled out on the couch beside him, having jumped at the chance to prove how responsible he can be, Cat finds herself being tugged into Kara’s arms.

“Thank you,” Kara whispers, her voice muffled in Cat’s neck.

Cat simply hums and pulls the sheets up a little higher.

“You’re pretty good with him.”

“Yes, well…”

“No, I mean it. Like, you really seem to get what to do, especially when he’s nervous.” Kara lets out a low chuckle. “I was so panicked about messing up that I called the vet four times this morning.”

After a moment, Cat admits, “I found my own Frankie when I was younger.”

“Oh?”

“A little younger and about half the size, but just as scared.”

“I didn’t know you grew up with dogs.”

“We didn’t.” Cat hates the way her voice catches, and she clears her throat, waiting until the surge of emotion has passed. “Mother didn’t let me keep her. I tried. For several days. Got her to warm up to me and taught her to sit and shake.”

“Oh.”

“I came home from school one day to find her gone. Mother told me she found her real owner. I imagine she was sent to the pound.”

“Cat.” Compassion comes so easily to Kara, and Cat lets herself be swept up in it for a moment before forcing herself back together.

“It’s fine.”

“Okay. Well, you know, if you ever want to talk about it…”

She does not. Decidedly does not. But she nods anyway and murmurs something reassuring, letting herself be lulled to sleep in Kara’s arms.

\---

By the end of Frankie’s second week with them, he knows to ring a bell when he has to go out, and he’s learned to tolerate the elevator without being held in Kara’s arms. (Though, like Cat, he refuses to ride in an elevator with anyone outside of his immediate family.)

By the end of Frankie’s third week with them, he’s officially a student at a local positive reinforcement-only dog training club, where he learns sit and down and come and paw at a surprisingly fast pace, even if he never quite masters roll over.

By the end of Frankie’s fourth week with them, he is formally adopted as the newest member of the Grant family with new dog tags, registration paperwork, and a microchip to prove it. Kara throws him a small welcome party with little more than the three of them, Alex, and Astra over to celebrate—other than Carter, Frankie hasn’t quite gotten used to having men around, though Cat promises him that he’s not missing out on much—and Frankie shows off his new tricks and gets enough snacks to last him a full week.

It’s during week five that the DEO calls Kara in for her first overnight emergency since they adopted Frankie. Cat paces in her bedroom and refreshes the news until she hears a snuffling sound coming from outside her bedroom door.

“Yes?” she asks, inching the door open.

Frankie whines up at her and barges right into the only room in the apartment that is decidedly off limits.

For a while, he paces back and forth with her in the good boy heel position they’ve been perfecting over the weeks.

“She’s going to be fine,” Cat tells Frankie.

He looks up at her.

“She’ll be back, I promise. I know she’s the fun mom, and you’d be very sad if she left, but she won’t. Not for very long. She never does.” After a moment, she shakes her head and mutters something to herself about talking to animals never being a good sign of stable mental health.

While she’s distracted, Frankie lets himself up onto the bed and curls up in a tiny little ball at the bottom of the mattress.

“You’re not supposed to be up there.”

He doesn’t budge.

“Fine,” Cat huffs. “Only until Kara gets back. And then you will greet her at the door, understand? This is our little secret.”

He lets out a quiet snore, which Cat takes as his agreement with the plan.

\---

And so it becomes a bit of a pattern. Frankie gets a second bed in Cat and Kara’s room, and he sleeps there except on the nights when Kara’s called away, at which point he jumps up to claim the newly evacuated warm spot, inching higher and higher up the mattress until his head is on the pillow.

Cat’s fairly certain it’s still a secret—at least until the night Kara gets back and finds Frankie sound asleep with his head on her pillow, completely sprawled out on her side of the bed with Cat’s arm draped over him from having fallen asleep while giving him belly rubs.

“That’s my spot, sir,” Kara whispers.

“Shh,” Cat shoots back. “You’ll wake him.”

“What—what happened to no dogs in the bed?” Kara splutters.

“He was worried about you.”

“I was just helping Alex with her broken-down motorcycle. You knew that!”

Cat shrugs, yawning sleepily and cuddling closer to Frankie.

“Frankie, go to Frankie’s bed,” Kara orders, pointing at the plush dog bed.

Nothing.

“Frankie.”

He stretches, his paws flexing in the air, then dropping back down to the bed.

“Cat,” Kara whines.

“Quiet. Some of us are trying to sleep here.”

“My—my spot! He’s got my whole side of the bed!”

“Maybe next time you try to sneak some stray into my apartment, you’ll choose a smaller one.”

“I…”

“I hear there’s a perfectly serviceable guest bed down the hall.”

“Cat!”

“Goodnight, Kara.”

Kara grumbles the whole way down the hallway about big mutts and girlfriends who are total pushovers even if they’ll never admit it.

Still, she gets her revenge, and Cat wakes up to a tagged photo of her sans makeup curled up with Frankie that’s captioned: “I still love them, even if they totally hog the bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who worked to put this week together!
> 
> I'm on Twitter and Tumblr @sapphicscholar


End file.
